Sunninghill

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Sunninghill
Berkshire
Sunninghill High Street - geograph-3044894.jpg
Sunninghill High Street
Location
Grid reference: SU937680
Location: 51°24’18"N, 0°39’22"W
Data
Population: 11,603  (2001 (with Ascot))
Post town: Ascot
Postcode: SL5
Dialling code: 01344
Local Government
Council: Windsor and Maidenhead
Parliamentary
constituency:
Windsor

Sunninghill is a village in Berkshire, in the very east of the county. Just to the east and spilling across the border into Surrey is Sunningdale, a name apparently derived from that of Sunninghill. Sunninghill sits just outside Ascot. Nearby are Bracknell and Windsor Great Park; Windsor itself is about 7 miles away.

The area is mainly residential, characterised by generally large dwellings set in their own grounds.

History and historic buildings

The name Sunninghill appears to mean "Home of Sunna's people after an otherwise unknown chief of early Anglo-Saxon times; it is known that there was a Mercian province of Sunningas adjoining Surrey, and the name is found also in the Berkshire village of Sonning on the River Thames.[1]

The parish church is St Michael and All Angels.[2] It was originally established about AD 890[3] but was rebuilt in 1808 and 1826-27.[3]

Cordes Hall, in the centre of the village, was designed by Joseph and Edward Morris and built in 1902.[3]

Mansions

Silwood Park

Silwood Park was first established as the manor house of Sunninghill by John de Sunninghill in 1362.[1] The park is now a campus of Imperial College London, where CONSORT,[4] a small nuclear reactor for civilian scientific research, has been in use since 1964.

Tittenhurst Park

John Lennon and his new wife Yoko Ono lived at the house known as Tittenhurst Park in A329 road|London Road from 1969-71.[5] Another Beatle, Ringo Starr then lived there till the late 1980s.[5] In the 19th century the house was also the home of Thomas Holloway the Victorian businessman and philanthropist together with his wife, Jane.[6] Holloway was the founder of Royal Holloway, London University, in nearby Englefield Green, and also of Holloway Sanatorium in nearby Virginia Water.[6] Jane died in 1875, aged 61; Holloway died there on 26 December 1875, aged 83. They are buried in a family grave at Sunninghill churchyard.

Sport

Sunninghill Saints Sports Club (2009) is a Saturday morning junior football and sports club for primary age children in the Ascot area.[7]

Outside links

Commons-logo.svg
("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Sunninghill)

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Sunninghill website - history". http://www.sunninghill.org.uk/cgi-bin/gpp/faq.pl. Retrieved 2008-09-21. 
  2. "Sunninghill Parish Church". http://parishchurch.sunninghill.org.uk/. Retrieved 2008-09-21. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Pevsner, 1966, page 233
  4. "CONSORT civilian scientific research nuclear reactor, 2007 update". http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/pls/portallive/docs/1/12301699.DOC. Retrieved 2008-11-17. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 Norman, Philip (2008). John Lennon The Life. Hammersmith: Harper Collins. pp. 615 et seq. ISBN 978-0-00-719741-5. 
  6. 6.0 6.1 Williams, Richard (1983). Royal Holloway College, A Pictorial History. Surrey: Royal Holloway, University of London. pp. 6-includes a picture of the house c.1930. ISBN 0-900145-83-8. 
  7. "Sunninghill Saints". http://www.sunninghillsaints.co.uk/. Retrieved 2009-06-29.